Bosc wrote:
That one looked a little nasty going by twitter.
They had a promising first followed by a ridiculously bad 2nd and a not-great 3rd. Nashville on the other hand just completely took over in the latter two thirds of the game.
A quick overview of the problems currently plaguing the Avs.
1. Nathan MacKinnon is letting the fact that he has 1 goal in 8 games get to him, and he's trying waaaaay too hard to get his 2nd. Flinging point blank shots wide, and he gets visibly frustrated after he misses. Also at times he's trying to do too much on his own, trying to stickhandle around three guys all at once when he should either be dishing or dumping the puck. Last night he and Landeskog got a 2-on-1 break shorthanded and instead of just taking the damned shot he set up Landy for a one-timer, who then promptly whiffed. He should've just taken the shot and pounced on the rebound, of which Rinne was giving up plenty. Pressure is on and there's some hand-wringing after he's turned in two somewhat uneven seasons after a fantastic rookie campaign. Advanced stats-wise, he's driving play better than anyone on the team (except for Johnny Malkin, who has gotten off to a ridiculously good start) and it's not even close, he's just gotta settle down a bit. He's an elite talent, he just has to realize it.
2. Adrian Dater has turned into a Roy Defender of Trump-like proportions. I like to give him the benefit of the doubt even when he's at his Hot-Taek-best, but he's being ridiculous. Last night I called him out on Twitter when he called out the core. The core is fine, apart from some early struggles from MacKinnon. But the same problem abounds as last season--the talent surrounding the core is failing miserably. Two key pickups from 2015--Soderberg and Beauchemin--have been the team's two worst players. Soderberg had an especially awful night last night, magnified even more by the fact that when he got kicked out of the faceoff circle on a d-zone draw, he didn't cover his man properly on the point, who then scored. You can't expect MacKinnon, Landeskog, Duchene, Johnson, and Barrie to carry this team night in-night out, some of these supporting cast member need to get their shit together.
3. Maybe it's just me but IMO offensive zone penalties are inexcusable. And Blake Comeau keeps committing them. He has definitely been the fans' whipping boy thus far, and with good reason. Keeps committing stupid penalties without contributing much else. I get that he missed most of camp/preseason with an injury but this is just ridiculous.
4. Bednar is making some curious lineup choices, and IMO he's treating Jarome Iginla with the kid gloves. Give him a 3rd line role at even strength along with some time on the power play, that's it. He can't do top six anymore. Bednar exiled Colborne to the 4th line which is a complete waste of time, but then bumped him up to play alongside Duchene, which I thought was the whole point of bringing him aboard in the first place. Bednar is a rookie coach despite his wealth of experience behind the bench. Needs to start making the tough choices though. He needs to use Colborne more, and guys like Iginla, Comeau, Bourque, and Soderberg less. Not sure what in hell he can do about Beauchemin though, he's already been relegated to the third pairing and is still stinking up the joint.
5. Goaltending has been uneven, but hey, it's been uneven pretty much everywhere. The good news is that it hasn't really been the reason why the Avs have lost games, last year or the years before that wasn't a possibility. They're at .500 now with somewhat shaky netminding, that's a silver lining.
Sakic has his work cut out for him in the next twelve months or so. They're in a bit of a cap crunch, they have some bad contracts, and the expansion draft is coming up in 2017. Avs have to leave a d-man unprotected, and the only guy they have signed past 2017 who probably should be that guy has a NMC. They either gotta ask him to waive (which will definitely not go well as Beauchemin signed because the Avs promised him security with the term and the NMC) or somehow find a warm body to be the sacrificial lamb. What will be interesting is which goalie they decide to protect. My money's on Pickard because I believe they want to cut ties with Varly for various reasons.